


Of Elephants and Cretins

by cerie



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, Time Travel, rivalries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-23
Updated: 2012-08-23
Packaged: 2017-11-12 18:22:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/494266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerie/pseuds/cerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Helen/Nikola; Helen only changes history precisely once in 113 years and it is to right a most grievous wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Elephants and Cretins

_New York, 1903_

“I won’t have it, Nikola, they’re making an example of her!” 

There are very few things that Nikola Tesla has ever done that can be considered even remotely unselfish and all of them (counted on precisely one hand with room to spare) involve Helen Magnus. He fought to have her admitted to Oxford and actually be able to sit for her degree but, being a foreigner himself, he had very little ground to stand on. He rescued her one night in the pouring rain when her dress was stained with blood and her face was swollen with bruises and she insisted she was never, ever going back to John Druitt.

And he is, apparently, about to rescue an elephant. God save them all, if he’s even listening.

“I trust you already went to James with this proposition?” It’s no real secret that Helen and James are sweet on one another and that man would move heaven and earth for Helen Magnus if it were within his proper gentlemanly sphere to do so. Since rescuing this elephant seems to be a little murky and mysterious, Nikola imagines James objected for fear of offending some particularly-auspicious politician that he wanted to curry favor with. Nikola Tesla doesn’t need to curry favor with anyone, which is why he gets charged with unsavory tasks like rescuing elephants and damsels trapped in bad betrothals.

“I thought perhaps you’d have a particular interest. It’s your dear friend Thomas Edison who intends this injustice. Wouldn’t you like to show him up?”

Her eyes are gleaming and Nikola knows, in fact, that he is doomed to follow through with it.

***

Luckily for them, Edison intends this to be a spectacle of the worst sort and everyone has come out in their finest to witness a spectacle of the macabre. It is the final nail in the coffin to know that Edison intends to film it with a motion picture camera and distribute this zoological snuff film in order to besmirch his name, _again_ , and Nikola thinks that’s a bit much. He can’t help it Edison is dumb as the proverbial rock and makes his living solely from stealing from others.

(He possibly can help the fact that he once whiled away an evening beneath Mina Edison’s skirts, but that’s neither here nor there.) 

He and Helen both dress in similar costumes of dove-gray wool and wear discreet hats. Nikola hates looking so common but Helen insisted they must _blend_ lest Edison and his men get word of what they’re doing. Nikola isn’t sure why she doesn’t just buy the damned elephant and keep it in her Sanctuary along with mermaids and God knows what else but Helen hasn’t been back to England or her Sanctuary for sometime. She also hasn’t been speaking with James, at all, and she thinks he hasn’t noticed. Nikola has noticed. When it comes to Helen Magnus, Nikola notices damn near everything.

They’re keeping the poor creature staked to a chain near the back of the park and Nikola is impatient to get on with it. Helen, however, spends a bit of time cooing and talking soothingly to the beast. It’s silly, perhaps, but Nikola swears that the damned elephant’s eyes grow softer and fill with tears at the sound of Helen’s sweet voice and it seems, yet again, the beauty can charm the brutish beast. It happened with Druitt, after all. Why not a killer elephant?

Helen has arranged for a zoo to take the animal, this one down in Atlantic City, and she glances around furtively only to catch sight of Edison’s men on the way to bring poor Topsy to her electrocution. Her eyes grow wide with panic and she shoos him off, begging him to make a distraction while she loads the elephant up in a cart and men drive her off in the complete opposite direction. Nikola arches a brow, sighs, and guesses he can put on _something_ of a show in order to make sure this farce goes off without a hitch.

It’s a three ring circus, even if only figuratively in spite of the fact that they _are_ at a circus and when he leaps center stage, he strokes his mustache the way any good villain might. He keeps one eye on Helen, who is pressing coins and bills into a driver’s hand and kissing his cheek before gently stroking a gloved hand down the elephant’s trunk and decides if he wants to make sure she won’t get in trouble, this had better be good.

“So, Edison, you ridiculous cretin. You think you’re going to show me up by electrocuting this poor defenseless creature in front of all these people? I bet you can’t even manage to wire the chair properly.”

Edison blusters for a moment and after regaining the higher ground, sweeps into a bow. “By all means, Mr. Tesla, why don’t you test the electrodes yourself? We don’t have a chair, you understand, seeing as how this were meant for Topsy but I’m certain we can manage to get a current going.”

Nikola grits his teeth and grasps the two electrodes, completing a circuit. It takes immense concentration not to cry out because while he can conduct electricity, it does more than just tickle a bit, and it’s hard to ground himself enough to ensure he doesn’t actually look fried. In the end, his hair smokes a little and stands on end but he can still manage to dust off his jacket and give his nemesis a broad, calculating grin.

“I believe I’ve won this round. By the way, a bunch of roustabouts just stole your elephant. No show today, everyone gets refunds?”

Nikola just manages to get away before Edison plants a bullet between his eyes, which is nice. He hates performing for an audience.

***

He has to take a rather-circuitous way back to the city and his suite at the Waldorf so that he doesn’t get rounded up for questioning after today’s display and when he lets himself in, more rumpled than when he left, Helen bolts to the door and ushers him in with a care he hasn’t seen from her in, well, ever. It’s curious, as is the red silk dressing gown when he knows she prefers blue and he tilts his head quizzically.

“All this for a damned elephant?”

Helen grabs him and kisses him fiercely and for a moment, there’s nobody in the world but the two of them. Her fingers are hooked tightly into his lapels and her lips are crushed against his, tasting of rouge and caramel and roses and all manner of sweet things. He lays his hands on her waist and, when she doesn’t protest, presses his luck by sliding one up and inside her gown, cupping her breast. She swats at him, but there’s no heat to it, and when she pulls away she tugs at his hand.

“Come on, there’s supper and champagne to be had. And it’s not for the elephant, not entirely. It’s for being a good man.”

Nikola guesses that as long as she doesn’t tell anyone, he’ll be content to reap the benefits of his good deed.

**Author's Note:**

> I recently read _Water for Elephants_ by Sara Gruen and at the end, she mentions that Topsy the Elephant was electrocuted by Thomas Edison in 1903 because she'd killed three men, one of them her abusive trainer. Edison filmed the event in order to prove that Tesla's experiments with alternating current were dangerous.
> 
> After reading this and following it up with some research, I decided Helen Magnus simply wouldn't stand for that nonsense, so this fic was born.
> 
> You can read about Topsy [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy_\(elephant\)).


End file.
